CRITICAL ISSUE: CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

Materials for Democratic Campaigns in Virginia

Democrats lead the way with criminal justice reform

Image
Image
Image

CORE MESSAGE

Virginia Democrats are working to make communities safer by reforming the criminal justice system. Their recent evidenced-based reforms have focused on dismantling the racist, unfair, and unjust criminal justice system built during the Jim Crow era. If Republicans take back the VA legislature, criminal justice reforms will be repealed and reversed!

Background

Years of Republican-controlled legislatures have resulted in a criminal justice system characterized by well-calculated racial disparities. Beginning with the 2020 session, Democrats have now taken control of both chambers. Together with Gov. Northam (D), the way is now cleared for significant reform at every level of the state’s criminal justice system, from traffic stops to prison sentences. In just 14 months, Democrats have delivered significant criminal justice reform legislation!


DEMOCRATIC RESPONSES: They Say/We Say

They say: Democrats are not tough on crime.
We say: Democrats want fair, evidence-based criminal justice laws.

They say: Republicans are the party of law and order.
We say: Republicans have criminalized poverty, over-policed and under-served Black and Latino communities for decades, for decades, and we are now seeing an unprecedented increase in AAPI hate crimes.  Our criminal justice system is failing to keep communities safe and failing to deliver justice.

They say: Democrats want to cut police funding.
We say: Democrats support appropriate police funding. Democrats also support expanded investments in police training, social services, mental health co-responders, and drug treatment, services that actually reduce crime and lead to safer communities.

Talking Points
  • Virginians want safe communities; Democrats’ justice
    reforms focus on making all communities safe.
  • Republicans trade on fear, racism, and exploit criminal
    justice issues for votes.
  • Republicans’ approach to criminal justice is incarceration,
    while Democrats know that rehabilitation leads to
    reduced recidivism.
  • Traffic stops are about searching the vehicle. They are
    not about broken taillights and dangling air fresheners.
  • Cuts to public services under Republicans have left police on the front lines, responding to social challenges for
    which they have not been trained, ranging from
    homelessness to mental health crises to the opioid
    epidemic.

Virginia Democrats Deliver
Police Reforms
  • Banned no-knock warrants
  • Limited traffic stops
  • Limited police use of choke holds
  • Created mental health response
    teams to co-respond with police
  • Mandated racial bias, de-escalation and crisis intervention training for police
  • Decertified problem police officers
  • Empowered civilian review boards
  • and much more!

Read our full report for details. Click the button below.

Talking Points

Click on the button to download the talking points summary of our Criminal Justice Reform report.

Talking Points— Criminal Justice Reform

ISSUE REPORT

Click on the button to download the complete Criminal Justice Reform report.

Criminal Justice Reform—Democrats Lead the Way

CREATIVE ASSETS

Mobile Ads

Creative assets are freely available to Democratic candidates for mobile ad campaigns in your district. Choose from a variety of animated gifs as well as static images in large and small sizes tailored to mobile phone advertising. Ask your Local Majority contact for help with mobile advertising services. Email us for help! All creative assets are available for download at this LINK.

Animated gifs

Image

Static Images

Image


Image

Animated gifs-small

Image
Static Images-small

Image
Image
Image


Image
Image
Image

SOCIAL MEDIA MEMES AND ASSETS

Local Majority generates memes and creative assets for a variety of social media platforms that are available for campaigns to leverage. Campaigns can use artwork by clicking on the indicated social media links to share, retweet or repost to their own social media. All creative assets are also available for download at this LINK where you can find the original files and full video formats.

INTO ACTION GIFS

Into Action Labs provides a huge variety of professionally-designed, eye-catching graphics available for free. Here is a small sampling. Find more gifs on every issue at their site at giphy.com/intoaction.